04/22/24 - 117 New Stories - REAL Environmental & Conservation Leadership In PA: http://tinyurl.com/9bh4zbtr
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Opinion- DEP Reorganization Will Benefit State's Next Energy Revolution
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By James M. Seif, Former Secretary, Department of Environmental Protection Until recently, most Pennsylvanians thought that the biggest economic story of our lifetime was our long, sad slide into the Rust Bowl. We were left to cope with old strip mines, orphaned oil and gas wells, thousands of abandoned factory sites and jobless people.
But the story has now turned far more positive and faster moving — but even more challenging. Timber, coal and oil now have an encore: Marcellus Shale gas has emerged as the next big driver of Pennsylvania’s economy.
Our first three battles with Penn’s Woods to extract and profit from its resources were nearly Pyrrhic victories; we injured our land, water, wildlife, air, communities and people — all resources we now know have just as much long-term value as the minerals we harvested.
Then, nearly 50 years ago, Pennsylvania writer Rachel Carson warned us of a coming “Silent Spring,” and the nation woke up and began to learn how to manage all of nature’s resources in ways that protected their value for the long term. No more dig-and-dump or drill-and-spill.
Pennsylvanians led the way, probably because of our past experience. We legislated, regulated, litigated, debated and yes, bloviated, and we’re still at it. But now we have built formidable legal doctrines, organizational tools and a strong public environmental ethic that shapes the discussion.
Gov. Ray Shafer formed the Department of Environmental Resources in 1970, the same year that EPA was founded. One of its first missions was to implement some of the nation’s first new laws on coal mining and mine restoration, for which a deputy-level office was established. Just recently, in recognition of the challenges of the Marcellus Shale, the Corbett administration has taken a similar action.
It formed a new deputy-level Office of Oil & Gas Management, to give the burgeoning gas industry the responsiveness it needs to do its work, and the oversight the public demands to hold it accountable for its environmental impacts.
This was part of a recently announced reorganization of DEP, and it’s a good first step in streamlining an agency that, in recent years, has lost its primary focus of consistently enforcing and helping our citizens comply with Pennsylvania’s environmental laws.
Issues of consistency have plagued the agency for years, and the new Office of Program Integration will take a bird’s-eye view of operations and make suggestions for streamlining operations and improving performance. It can act as a much-needed in-house consulting operation for the continuing improvement that we all would like to see. And I’m especially pleased to see DEP’s new Bureau of Environmental Cleanup and Brownfields bring together all of the agency’s cleanup and remediation programs under one roof.
For the last 15 years, since these laws were enacted by the Ridge administration, Pennsylvania has maintained its reputation as the nation’s leader in brownfields redevelopment. (The program won the Ford Foundation /Harvard University Most Innovative Public Program award in 1997.)
In this challenging economy, it’s more important than ever for this initiative to stay ahead of other states when competing for limited redevelopment and investment dollars. Creating a comprehensive unit focused on environmental cleanup will give added attention to this successful job-creating program.
Today, the Department of Environmental Protection wears more hats than perhaps almost any other public agency — enforcer, defender, protector, scientist, educator and communicator. I believe the agency’s new “back-to-basics” approach will enhance all of these roles and provide improved, more efficient service to Pennsylvania’s citizens, business and environment. From personal experience, I can safely predict that DEP’s employees will strive conscientiously to make it work well.
The energy barons of the past would surely be puzzled by a government agency such as DEP, and Rachel Carson would just as surely be pleased by it. Modern Pennsylvanians should strive to make the agency even better, and our children will be glad we did so.
James M. Seif is an attorney and consultant in Blue Bell. He served as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection from 1995-2001.
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10/10/2011 |
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